Lithography machines are hard.

It's really, really hard.

The difficulty factor is ten times higher than that of a hydrogen bomb.

Even if the country is poured into it, it is impossible to win it in a short period of time.

The above are the words that often fill Wei Ming's ears, and he almost has calluses in his ears when he hears them.

Is it really that hard?

These days, I personally entered the R&D factory, understood the working principle of the lithography machine, and easily polished dozens of qualified high-precision parts in the "boss workshop" by using the small black in the body, as well as 20 pieces of "pot lid" lenses - each "pot lid" lens is made of 40 layers of glass superimposed, and the surface protrusion shall not exceed 1 nanometer.

"It's simple, it doesn't seem to be difficult."

Looking at the batches of parts in front of him with completely qualified accuracy, Wei Ming pouted and said.

"What's the problem?"

"The light generator is very difficult."

Pu Weicai said: "In order to create a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers, it is necessary to use 193 nanometers of deep ultraviolet light to hit the free-falling metal tin droplets, and in a very short time, hit the tin droplets twice in a row, repeating 50,000 times per second, in order to produce sufficient intensity of extreme ultraviolet light." ”

It is important to know that the diameter of the metal tin droplets is only twenty microns.

In the process of free fall, it is not only struck by a laser, flattened into a round cake by a droplet, and then struck a second time to shoot the most intense extreme ultraviolet light...... The whole process takes place completely dynamically, like hitting a fly with an embroidery needle, and hitting it twice in a row.

And in one second, repeat this set of operations 50,000 times.

"Didn't you say you've solved the light source problem? And the energy efficiency has reached 5%? Wei Ming said puzzled.

"The light source is solved, because the impact light source we use is the 132 nanometer light emitted by special crystals, and the energy utilization rate is definitely much higher than that of 193 nanometer light, but in order to create extreme ultraviolet light with sufficient intensity of 13.5 nanometer wavelength, it still has to be achieved by hitting tin droplets, which is the only feasible path."

"In other words, you've only done hitting the light source, and then you're going to say you've got the light source...... These two are not the same thing, are they? ”

Wei Ming's brows furrowed.

"Mr. Wei, it's not that we like to engage in false propaganda, but if there are no results in long-term scientific research, who will pay attention to us, and how can the above allocate funds to us? So even if it's only a partial breakthrough, you have to focus on publicity. ”

Xiang Guanglin on the side explained.

"The last technical challenge we are tackling is the frequency of the tin drops."

Pu Weicai also said: "We have solved the problem of continuous hitting, but it can be repeated up to 5,000 times per second, but our energy utilization rate is higher, and we only need to repeat 20,000 times per second, which is enough light intensity to use." ”

"So our energy utilization rate is not meaningless, 20,000 times per second is significantly easier to achieve than 50,000 times per second."

"20,000 ...... per second"

Wei Ming pondered for a moment and said, "What conditions are missing to prevent you from reaching this frequency?" ”

"Precision, precision of the control system."

Pu Weicai said: "Just like a clock, at the same time, it accurately controls the free fall of 20,000 tin drops and 40,000 hits, and the error in time shall not exceed one billionth of a second per second; In terms of distance, it should not exceed 1 nanometer per second, and a set of 'deviation correction' system should be designed, as long as the error accumulation is too large, it will be automatically corrected, so that the system can continue to operate stably for a long time. ”

"At present, we are making every effort to overcome the control system, and the deviation correction system is slightly behind, but we have also arranged a team to tackle key problems."

"Of course, if the relevant parts imported from the island country can reach us soon, we may be able to achieve a strike frequency of more than 20,000 times within three months."

Island country?

Trimester?

Wei Ming shook his head and smiled, and said, "If you lack any parts, leave them to me, and I'll figure them out for you." ”

Then he tinkered for three days straight.

Laser frequency controller.

Highly sensitive distance sensor.

And what kind of device, what kind of device, and what Wei Ming can't name professionally.

In three days, he did a dozen of them.

Then let Pu Weicai and them, stuff these devices into the control system, and assemble them together with extremely high precision requirements.

The trial run was started again.

"Release tin drops at an initial frequency of 1 drop per second." Pu Weicai commanded and said.

"Start the release."

"Two successful hits, perfect flattening shape, perfect excitation effect!"

"Increase the frequency of releases."

"50 trials per second were successful."

"500 trials per second!"

"5,150 trials per second successful! Tied the highest record. The operator's voice trembled slightly.

"Keep increasing! Go a little higher! ”

Pu Weicai also began to get excited, this is just the first time to debug, and it actually equaled the highest record created by the previous set of parts for continuous debugging hundreds of times?

"5,500 tests per second were successful, setting a new record!"

"Plus!"

7000 per second

9000 per second

10,000 per second

……

It has been added to 20,000 per second to meet the frequency requirements.

Everyone was shocked to the point of numbness, and still succeeded!

"Again, more!"

30,000 per second

40,000 per second

45 thousand per second

50,000 per second!

"The frequency of tin drop release has reached the upper limit, and it is still successful!" The operator shouted without an image.

"The converted light intensity is 2.5 times the rated light intensity!"

Xiang Guanglin's eyes were red and he yelled: "This means that the efficiency of this lithography machine in processing wafers is at least twice that of Esmead EUV, and one of us can top two of them!" ”

"Don't scream!"

Pu Weicai waved his hand high, stared at the data after the duration, and tried his best to suppress his emotions and said: "Look at the situation of 50,000 tin drops per second and 100,000 hits per second, how long can this system work stably?" Don't be noisy, your noise may affect its play. ”

Everyone fell silent.

Hold your breath.

All eyes were fixed on the duration.

5 minutes

15 minutes

29 minutes and 38 seconds

Due to the increasing accumulation of errors, there was no correction system to correct them, and the whole system finally stopped running automatically.

Syllable!

Pu Weicai hit his left palm with his right fist, and said with a flushed face: "3 minutes is enough, as long as 3 minutes, there is no need to support a very complex design of the deviation correction system, I didn't expect it to last for half an hour!" We only need to design a very simple deviation correction system, which can make it work stably for a long time, and the complexity of the whole system will be reduced by at least 10%, saving us a lot of time! ”

"It's amazing, it's amazing!"

As the person in charge of the project, he himself shouted: "The problem of the light source has been completely solved, the duplex table is now available, the lens is fully usable, and our EUV lithography machine is at least 90% complete!" ”

"We have full hope of victory!"

As he spoke, he burst into tears, and he almost wanted to cry.

It's been more than ten years! This time, he really saw hope, right in front of him, and it was already within reach.

Seeing him like this, the other members of the team with him also wiped the corners of their eyes and made a whining sound.

"It's not really successful yet, it's better to save the tears for the celebration banquet."

A slightly disappointing voice came.

But I heard Wei Ming say: "Dr. Pu, just now you still looked resistant, suspecting that the things I polished can't be used, now what?" Believe what I said, the parts problem is not a problem for our company, and the technical difficulties you said are not very difficult. ”

"That's right, that's right."

Pu Weicai hurriedly wiped his tears, revealing an innocent smile: "Mr. Wei, you are right, as long as Mr. Wei is out of the horse, the lithography machine, there is no difficulty, I believe that under the leadership of Mr. Wei, we can solve all technical problems!" ”

This time he was truly convinced, and there was only worship in his eyes.

"That's right, it's all thanks to Mr. Wei."

"Mr. Wei has worked hard, give Mr. Wei a beating on the shoulder."

"Mr. Wei's god-level polishing can create industrial miracles!"

"Mr. Wei is the biggest hero, thank you Mr. Wei."

Another wave of sycophants came over.

This time, Pu Weicai not only did not cough to stop it, but was the one who shot the most powerfully.

Of course, it was enough for the sycophants to listen for a while, and Wei Ming asked them to immediately put into their work and continue to look for problems and solve problems until there were no problems.